catapult magazine

Off to the Festival we go

by Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma

By the time this issue appears for the first time on the catapult homepage, Rob and I will be at the Festival of Faith & Writing in Grand Rapids, where Rob will displaying for *cino and I will attending the lectures and workshops.

I’ve never been to the well-known festival before, but I remember last spring, when Rob went to the Festival of Faith & Music to display for *cino and realized halfway through the conference that he could be attending as a musician, not just as a *cino representative. Happily, attending this year’s festival as a writer was my Christmas gift, so I won’t be spending a day and a half handing out brochures and selling t-shirts without a vision for the festival’s potential. Instead, I’ll be gleaning information and inspiration from dozens of writers, young and not-as-young, to support me in this up-and-down vocation (see this issue’s articles by Kate Bowman and Jeremy Huggins for more on the writer’s life).

I’m also glad that the Festival will provide an opportunity to introduce hundreds (perhaps thousands) of writers and readers to catapult magazine. Even though catapult is still a part-time project for me and a few others, and even though we could use more help with its bi-weekly tasks, I’m proud of the work we do and the issues we produce. We succeed at tackling a wide variety of topics, engaging the voices of all types of people, and posting quality writing and ideas in a medium that tends to be overrun with junk. And, amazingly, we’ve done this 42 times since September 2002—quite an achievement, I think.

At this point, it’s essential that I give credit to our volunteer writers, both those who respond to an invitation to contribute for a particular relevant issue and those who faithfully contribute their work on a variety of topics. We wish we could pay you what you’re worth, though we hope at the very least, we offer you an outlet for your work and a community of support. I’m proud to show you off and to know that such talented people find it worthwhile to invest their time in *culture is not optional.

My job has been made significantly easier lately by the formation of a writer’s e-mail list. I send announcements out to this list about every week or so, detailing needs and deadlines for upcoming issues. If you would like to join this list, please contact me at kirstinvgr@cultureisnotoptional.com. Indeed, if you would like to get involved in *cino in any way, please get in touch. Even with over forty issues in the archives and several projects already underway, we are still a young and developing organization, with lots of room for the gifts of individuals who have a vision for boldly engaging culture. Who knows where you might fit in? We’re certainly open to ideas.

Well, I must get on to packing for the Festival. I’ll meet you again in the next issue, renewed and refreshed for this work of arranging words and phrases.